sphere of influence selling - dannyhughes.me · sphere of influence selling: an inside sales...

Sphere of Influence SellingAn Inside Sales Approach to Crushing Your Quota

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Sphere of Influence Selling: An Inside Sales Approach to Crushing Your Quota / ringlead.com

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3

Step 1: Do the Research ..............................................................................................................8

Step 2: Leave a Voicemail .......................................................................................................... 10

Step 3: Send an Email ................................................................................................................ 13

Step 4: Involve Multiple Contacts from the Start ........................................................................ 14

Sphere of Influence Selling ROI ................................................................................................. 19

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 21

Find Contacts with Capture! ....................................................................................................... 22

Contents

Sphere of Influence Selling: An Inside Sales Approach to Crushing Your Quota / ringlead.com 3

The Problem with Most Sales Tactics

99% of sales efforts focus on how to optimize the subject line in your email, the enthusiasm of your voicemail, and the best time to call in

order to catch the prospect at their desk. How likely is it that you’re going to leave the perfect voicemail or send the perfect email? How likely is it that those tactics will speak to your prospect’s issue right at that moment, right at that time?

It’s not very likely.

This traditional sales approach increases the volume of information fired at prospects. They now have tons of information to self-digest and self-review, so there’s little wonder why the response to voicemail and email continues to go down and down and down and down.

Hitting and optimizing those email, voicemail and time of call points are valid, but if you follow this model, your message will likely look like this:

“ Amanda, this is Dan from ABC Company. I’d like to talk

to you about how our software can automate your manual

research processes. Here’s my email, here’s my phone

number, here’s a link to my website. Feel free to call me

back and if you don’t, I’ll call you every three days until you

get tired of hearing from me.”How likely is Amanda to return that call? Not very likely.

Introduction


The founder of Sphere of Influence Selling, Dan

Hughes, has 27 years of sales experience, and 17

of those years were in an inside sales capacity;

representative, manager, trainer and entrepreneur. While

working in these various inside sales capacities, he

continuously sought ways to work smarter rather than

harder. He aimed to stand above the noise and engage

prospects in quality based, deliberately conscientious

conversations about the topics and solutions that prospects

care about.

Sphere of Influence Selling is all about sales engagement.

It fosters, promotes, and incentivizes a prospect to want to

engage with you to get the sales process moving.

Done correctly, it will materialize all the way through the

sales process.

Creating sales engagement means creating awareness,

curiosity, and an impetus to act. You have long known that

the higher the level of awareness and curiosity, the stronger

the likelihood of engagement, and ultimately, the more

likelihood to close a sale.

Successful sales start with Sphere of Influence

Selling because it encourages dialogue, obtains open

communication, and enables a mutual exchange of ideas

to determine if you and your prospect are a good match.

What is Sphere of Influence Selling?


What Makes Sphere of Influence Selling Different?

What makes Sphere of Influence Selling successful and

compelling is that prospects are more concerned with

their reputation inside of their organization initially

than they are about what you are calling about. Sphere of Influence

Selling leverages this concept.

Sphere of Influence Selling shifts the odds in your favor. Go back to

the scenario earlier to compare the approaches.


What Makes Sphere of Influence Selling Different?

OLD WAY:

“ Amanda, this is Dan from ABC Company. I’d like to

talk to you about how our software can automate manual

research processes. Here’s my email, here’s my phone

number, here’s a link to my website. Feel free to call me

back and if you don’t, I’ll call you every three days until

you get tired of hearing from me.”

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE:

“ Amanda, this is Dan from ABC Company, I’m

reaching out to you, and based on my research, I’m also

reaching out to Joe, Matt and Jen, people you work with

to determine who’s best to begin my conversation about

the topic of streamlining your processes. I’ll be sending

you all an email hoping to get some feedback from you

as to where you recommend that I begin my effort to

engage. Feel free to call me or email me.”


The old approach is a direct engagement strategy, and it’s based on a hope that your topic and

your voicemail is so compelling that it catches your prospect at the right time.

The Sphere of Influence approach utilizes political and organizational motivation. It is mandate

oriented because it makes the prospect not only think about what you’re selling, but about

their job. The last thing they want is their peers and superiors to call them and ask about that

salesperson and their product. The prospect wants to be the one who knows first. The prospect wants to be the one who had

the chance to determine if they want to carry this torch inside their organization.

Ready to start Sphere of Influence Selling? Here are the necessary steps.


Step 1: Do the Research

Sphere of Influence requires upfront work. You not

only need to understand the prospect’s topic of

interest, but you need a knowledge of their internal

power structure, and who you want to contact within that

structure. Sphere of Influence techniques start with identifying

multiple names, titles and emails. This is a due diligence step

that every good sales professional should do.

Start with your ideal buyer. From there, determine the user,

the champion, the decision maker, and the economic buyer.

Since each organization has a different structure, the only

way to determine the contacts is with research.

For instance, if you are calling the VP of Sales, your research

will uncover the ideal influence points of that VP. Marketing,

the CEO, the CFO, an inside sales director, etc. all may play

a role and influence the VP of Sales. Therefore, it’s not just

about finding the VP of Sales’ manager, but finding the other

influential team members within the organization.

You might be thinking, what about skipping the research and

calling the owner or the CEO of the business? The owners

and the CEO of the business are beholden to someone as

well. It might be shareholders, board members, competitive

pressure, etc. You will get their attention if you’re able to tell

an owner of a business that you plan to reach out to them,

a couple of colleagues in their organization, as well as their

competitors. This requires research.


There are a number of tools inside and outside of the CRM, such as LinkedIn, or automated research tools, etc. to help you find

this contact information. It’s all about taking the universe of potential points of contact, researching and building an up-to-date

contact information and then piecing together the components of an organization. Determine the touch points, the influence

points, the buyer points, etc. and line them up from there.

Those sales professionals that use these tools already know how to accomplish this step effectively, saving them time and

allowing them to focus on selling.


Bad days happen.The prospect could be having a bad

day, and you could therefore have

a bad response by calling. That automatically

makes it difficult to continue the conversation.

Step 2: Leave a Voicemail

Armed with the necessary contact information, the next step is to approach the prospect with a series of voicemails and

emails designed to create a Sphere of Influence around the identified contacts you wish to engage. Never call with the

intention to have a dialogue the first time. Ask for voicemail, as you’re not interested in having the conversation right now,

for a couple for reasons.

You are interrupting their day.You’re not bold or assumptive enough

to think that your call, which interrupts

someone’s day, is automatically of interest to them. Your

contact is digging through 100 emails and has stacks of

paper on their desk. How do you act when you pick up the

phone and hear a sales pitch? Don’t interrupt their day.

#1 #2


You lose control.If you are successful in catching the contact on the phone the first time you call, you’re

in a dialogue lock. You do not have the opportunity to apply any mandated Sphere

of Influence pressure. If you don’t like how that dialogue turns out, it won’t look good when

you try to reach out to others in the organization as part of Sphere of Influence. It

might appear as if you’re going around the person, and that’s not what you want.

These are the dangers of engaging in dialogue

initially. Traditional teachings say that sales is about

talking to someone, but in executing Sphere of Influence,

leaving a voicemail is part of the process.

#3


What to Do if Someone Answers the Phone

Now that we understand that voicemail is the first

contact approach, what happens if someone

answers the phone when you call? Get to

voicemail. Here’s one way to do it:

“ Amanda, this is Dan from Company ABC. I am sorry,

I did not want to interrupt your day. My intention was to

leave a voicemail for you, so you’re more than welcome to

just put me back into voicemail.”A common response is not to put the person into

voicemail, but to ask what they’re calling about. Now

you’ve got their attention and interest. At this point, you

can relay your voicemail message live.

“ I was going to reach out to you, as well as Joe, Matt

and Jen, and have a conversation about this solution that

we have to help streamline your processes. The reason

for my call was to determine who best in your organization

you recommend that I talk to, to begin this process of

evaluating what we can do for you.”This approach invites you to have conversations with

other people, and opens the door throughout the process

of selling.


Step 3: Send an Email

Your email will be similar to your voicemail approach.

Include the standard elements of a quality

introduction, as well as making sure to:

● Clearly show that you are CCing others and make

reference in the initial sentence of the email that you

are doing so

● Draw attention to the voicemail that compliments your

email

● Note that you are attempting to identify who best

in their organization to connect with regarding your

product or service

The last bullet is the most important because it gives the

prospect a next step. At the same time, other decision makers

and influencers are aware of you and will be curious as to the

results of any conversations that take place.

Albeit simple, the clear CC of email addresses, the mention of

other intended parties, and the request to find the best contact

in the organization, are big impact items.


Step 4: Involve Multiple Contacts from the Start

Oftentimes salespeople put themselves in a corner.

They make a call, they’re relentless, they leave

voicemails, emails, etc., but all of that effort is for

one contact. You build a relationship and leave it up to that

person to tell you, after you’ve built some rapport, if your

solution is valuable.

If you get passed the demo, what happens next and who else

needs to get involved? It’s typically around that time that the

contact brings in other people for a second demo and if it all

works out, you’ll get it sold.

What happens if you don’t get to the demo stage? You’re

leaving it up to one person to dictate your path to success. If

that person goes dark, what do you do then? Do you call the

CEO or the other people your contact has name dropped in

this process? While it could reopen doors, you potentially risk

losing your biggest advocate.

Sphere of Influence is all about leaving a voicemail and an

email to multiple contact points at an organization, with the

intention to identify the best person in the organization to move

the process along. You are not putting all your eggs in one

basket, and you have plenty of other people to contact if one

goes dark. For example:

“ Amanda, this is our second demo, have we thought about

inviting Joe? Should we invite Jen? Are they involved in the

process? Should I copy them on the quote?”There’s so much power in taking the time to slow down and

implement Sphere of Influence effectively.


How to Involve Administrative Assistants

In this stage, you’re interested in gathering a tribe

of people that could potentially engage or apply

influence. If you need to go through an

administrative assistant, lead in with:

“ Nancy this is Dan

Hughes calling. I want to

reach out to John and I

know he’s busy, so can

I leave him a voicemail?

Oh, by the way, I’m going

to probably call back and I’m

going to have you transfer me

to a couple other numbers. Please

transfer me to John’s voicemail first.”

Administrative assistants, or those who manage the

phones, will hardly ever have an objection to sending you

to voicemail. You will get more cooperation from

requesting a voicemail over a live call.

Since they know you’re going to call back

a few times, they will likely give you the

necessary extensions or transfer you.

When you call Nancy back, let her

know you just left a message for John

and, as you mentioned, you’d like to

leave a voicemail for Michael next.


Confirm Your Data

Leverage administrative assistants and your first contact to confirm or provide missing data. For instance, if you let them

know you’re going to send an email to the VP of Sales, you can also request confirmation.

“ Based on my research, John Miller is the VP of Marketing at [email protected]. Can you confirm that my

research is accurate?”This works for a phone number, a title or a name, and more. Again, you’ll get more cooperation with this approach over asking

to speak directly to the VP of Sales in the moment.


How to Reference Other Contacts in the Organization

For your voicemail to the next contact, consider something such as:

“ Michael, I just left a voicemail for John. I reached out to him,

and I’m reaching out to you, and I’m going to contact a few others to

determine who I should talk to about what we do...”


Sales Cycle

You can use Sphere of Influence at any point in the sales cycle,

but be careful of the risk of antagonizing an existing contact if

you introduce this practice midway through the cycle. You know

your prospects best, so consider their personality, their organizational

structure and the potential negative impacts, as well as the positive ones.


Sphere of Influence Selling ROI

Dan Hughes has gained hundreds of clients using

Sphere of Influence Selling and his goal is to teach

salespeople and sales leaders how to execute this

methodology to achieve their own success.

According to Dan, “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve

heard, ‘Dan, I’m glad you called. We took a look at the

content, we think there’s something here, and I’ll be your first

point of contact.’”

At the end of this exercise, you can do three or four phone

calls in a target organization, hitting on potential decision

makers and influencers. You will get a tremendous response

back just from that exercise.

By leveraging multiple contacts and aligning yourself with

their interests, you will build strategic relationships that will

last. Some of Dan’s biggest strategic accounts were built

based on this methodology and these clients have been with

Dan for years.

By leveraging multiple contacts and aligning yourself with their interests, you will build strategic relationships that will last. “ “


Sales Metrics

Many sales organizations have volume call

requirements, revenue quotas or other metrics

for tracking sales success. Sphere of Influence

Selling is a thorough systematic approach. While it takes

more upfront work with research and calls, it is a quality

based engagement with a similar foundation to any other

sales discipline.

● You have a solution

● You know your target

● You understand the personas of the contacts you’re

engaging with

● You know the typical path of success

Therefore, the same metrics can be applied such as:

● Volume of callbacks

● Engagement

● Response

● Deal flow

● Opportunity flow

Your comprehension of the target business will far exceed

those that are volume based and cold calling based.

It’s quality over quantity and it’s about an engagement

methodology.


T his concept is an amalgamation and a customizat ion of Forbes top 25 and top 50 sales

training resources, as wel l as Dan Hughes’ sales best pract ices, and i t can result in

ki l ler sales results for you and your organizat ion. Take what you’ve learned and package

and architect i t to create your own sales pract ice.

Would you rather focus on three or four qual i ty cal ls a day or blast through over 80 or 100 cal ls

a day? The choice is yours and the results wi l l speak for themselves. Do your due di l igence and

start c losing more deals.

Conclusion


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sphere of influence selling - dannyhughes.me · sphere of influence selling: an inside sales...

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